_To Mr John Blackwood_.
“Trieste, _Jan_. 4,1870.
“When I saw ‘Maga’ without me I began to feel as if I had died (hitherto
at Trieste I only believed I had been buried), and when your cheque
reached me this morning I pictured myself as my own executor! You
are most kind to bethink you of the necessities of this pleasant
season,--indeed I scarcely know anything of Christmas but its bills I
Still, I should be well content to have nothing heavier on my heart than
money cares, and I believe that is about as dreary a confession as a man
can well make.
“I am sorry to hear you have not been well, but I trust it is a thing of
the past already: I don’t think either of us would be what is called a
good patient. I like the Homer Odyssey (?) greatly. I suspect I guess
the writer--that is, from a mere accident. ‘Suez’ is excellent, and
Stanley’s opinion is that of the best German engineers also. Aren’t you
flattering to my Lord of Knebworth? It was not, however, a ‘good fairy’
gave him a wife.
“Sydney sends her love. She is going over to England in spring (at
least she says so, and I suppose I am bound to believe it) to pay that
Devonshire visit I interrupted last year.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Feb_. 3,1870.
“In Stanley’s clever article on ‘Suez’ for January there is a sketch
of an Italian travelling companion so like a portrait that we all here
fancy we recognise the man. It is the same who addresses the Empress
Eugénie so brusquely. If we be right, he is an old acquaintance of ours
called ‘Campereo.’ Pray, if occasion serve, ask if this be the man. It
is wonderfully like him at all events, and I could almost bet on it.
“I have been hoping to hear from you, and delaying to tell you--what
for me is a rare event--a piece of pleasant news. Sydney is about to
be married. The _sposo_, an Englishman, young, well educated,
well-mannered, and well off; he is the great millowner, paper
manufacturer, and shipbuilder of Austria, and has about £7000 a-year.
“I need not say it is a great match for a poor ‘tocherless lass,’ but
I can say that the man’s character and reputation would make him
acceptable if he had only £500 a-year.
“To myself, overborne and distressed by the thought of how little I
had done for my children, and how wastefully and foolishly I had
lived,--spending my means pretty much as I did my brains, in bursts of
spendthrift extravagance, and leaving myself in both cases with nothing
to fall back on,--it is a relief unspeakable that one of my poor girls
at least is beyond the straits of penury.
“I know that you and Mrs Blackwood have a warm and kindly feeling
towards us, and you will be glad to hear of such good fortune. I do not
know that the excitement has been very favourable to my poor wife,
who can only look as yet to the one feature--that is, that she loses
a child’s companionship; but I trust that in time she will see with me
that the event is one to be truly thankful for.
“The marriage is to take place on the 21st, and after a trip to Rome,
&c, they visit Paris, and on to London some time in April. Sydney
ardently hopes that you and Mrs Blackwood may be in town this season:
she longs to see you both again.
“I need not say I have done nothing but answer and write notes for the
last few weeks, and sit in commission over trousseau details, for which
how I am ever to pay I hope somebody knows--but _I_ do not. I remember
Fergus O’Connor saying that he could ‘get in’ for Mallow ‘if he could
stand a dinner to his committee,’ and I can fully appreciate that nice
situation at present.
“Mr Cook has been at me again in a pamphlet. It was only a few days back
he went through here with a gang, and I had determined to dine at
_table d’hôte_ with them, but was laid up with a heavy cold and sorely
disappointed accordingly.
“I hear from London that Dizzy is hopeful and in good heart, but of
what or why I cannot guess. Certainly the country is not
Conservatively-minded now, nor could the Tories succeed to power except
by repeating the Reform Bill dodge of outbidding the Whigs and then
strengthening the Radical party. That Dizzy is ready for this, and that
he would push a Land Bill for Ireland to actual commission, I can easily
believe; but are we not all sick of being ‘shuttlecocked’ between two
ambitious and jealous rivals? And is there not something else to be
thought of than who is to be First Lord of the Treasury?
“I see a book advertised called ‘Varieties of Viceregal Life.’ If I had
it I suspect I could make an amusing paper on it--that is, if the book
bore out its title.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Feb_. 9, 1870.
“I have been hoping and hoping to have a line from you, and would still
go on waiting for it only that the ‘O’Dowd’ I now send is too ‘apropos’
for delay. It is the only one I have written, but think you have still
one or two by you--‘The Pope,’ and ‘Landlords and Limits.’ I am terribly
knocked up,--such an attack on the chest,--and not able to leave my
room, and at a time when I am full of care and occupation.
“Lord Clarendon has written me a private and confidential about ‘Cook
and the Excursionists,’ who have petitioned him against me. Lord
Clarendon evidently foresees a ‘question’ to be asked in the House, and
wants an answer. Mine was that Cornelius O’Dowd was not in the Consular
service, nor, so far as I was aware, had he any relations with F.
O.; that he was a person who amused himself and, when he could, other
people, by ridiculing whatever was absurd, or in bad taste or manners,
or hypocritical in morals; and that being one who had followed the
avocation of a writing man for thirty years, he must be understood
to have acquired some notions, not only of the privileges but the
responsibilities of the pen; and that, finally, as Consul Lever, I had
no explanation to make Mr Cook, who first blackguarded me in print and
then appealed to my official superior.
“Sydney’s marriage comes off Monday 21st. I am forced to say, like King
Frederic of Prussia, ‘Another such victory would ruin me.’ To be sent
to one’s grave by milliners does seem a very ignoble destiny!--but a
bad bronchitis, aided by Brussels lace, has brought me to a state of
feverish irritability that, if it does not terrify me, certainly alarms
my family, and _con ragione_.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _March_ 3,1870.
“Perhaps you’ll say ‘dull as ditch water’ was the inspiration as well as
the title of this ‘O’Dowd/ and mayhap I won’t deny it. It is, however, a
heartfelt cry over the dreariness of the time the ‘whole world over,’
and I am sure many will acknowledge the truth of it.
“I know nobody jolly but Sydney. She writes me full accounts of Venetian
Carnival doings,--masques and gondoliers, &c, &c., and music on the
Grand Canal till daybreak.
“Here I am hipped and out of heart,--waiting, too, but for the
undertaker, I believe, for it is the only ‘carriage exercise’ I should
now care for.
“We had two smart shocks of earthquake yesterday. I thought that Cumming
was going to be right after all, but it passed off with nothing worse
than some tinkling of the teacups and a formidable swinging of the
lustre over our heads.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _March_ 6, 1870.
“The Whigs would like to blend up Fenianism and agrarian crime. _Now
they are not to be so confounded_. The National party is anti-English,
rebel, violent, cruel, anything you like, but the men _who shoot the
landlords are not the Fenians!_ It is a brief I should like well
to plead on, and you will see ere long that there will be many to
acknowledge its truth.
“Gladstone will carry his Bill, I’m sure, but if the Tories are adroit
they will make a complete schism in the Irish party and throw the
Catholic set so completely on the side of the Ministry as to disgust the
Protestant feeling of England. How I wish I had half an hour with Dizzy,
and that he would condescend to listen to me!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“March 15, 1870.
“I was glad to hear from you, and gladder to hear you liked the O’Ds.
“Sydney is away to Rome honeymooning it very pleasantly, and meeting all
manner of attentions, &c. The trousseau has spoilt my trip to town. I
have ‘taken out’ in white lace what I meant for ‘whitebait,’ and I
must try and screw on in life for one year more if I mean to see London
again. It was the celebrated Betty O’Dwyer that said to her legs,
‘I’ll take another season out of you before I’ll give you to Tom
O’Callaghan.’”
_To Mr William Blackwood._
“_March_ 16,1870.
“I have no patience with you for being ill. What I a fellow of something
and twenty, with a sound chest, six feet in his stockings, and a hunter
in top condition; what an ungrateful dog to Fortune you are!
Leave sickness to old cripples like myself,--hipped, dunned, and
blue-devilled,--with a bad balance at the bank, and a ruined digestion.
_You_ have no business with malady! Come over and see me here: the very
contrast will make you happy and contented.
“I hope, however, you are all right by this time. I’m sure you stick too
close to the desk. Be warned by _me!_ It was all over-application
and excessive industry ruined _my_ constitution; and instead of being
threatened to be cut off, as I am now, in the flower of my youth, I
might have lived on to a ripe old age, and all that rottenness that they
tell us makes ‘medlars’ exquisite.
“I send you a tailpiece to the O’D. Heaven grant that the Saxon
intelligence, for which I daily feel less veneration, should not suspect
me of being a Fenian in disguise, though if it should get me dismissed
from my consulate and turned out into the streets, I’d almost cry
hurrah! for, after all, picking oakum could scarcely be worse than
cudgelling my brains for what, after all the manipulation, can’t be got
out of them.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _April_ 1,1870.
“I suppose ‘Sanding the Sugar’ reached you too late, or was it that you
don’t like it? _I_ thought it was good, but needed careful going over
again and perhaps enlarging.
“I send you three now, and hope you will like them. I have been days
over them, and without getting on, for my poor wife’s time of being
operated on again draws nigh, and her fear and nervousness have made her
seriously ill. For the last three nights I have been sitting up beside
her, and as I have been very ‘creaky’ some time back, this pressure has
pushed me very hard indeed.
“Many thanks for ‘Piccadilly’; it is beautifully got up, and the style
and look of it perfectly faultless. I have re-read it, and like it
greatly,--indeed, I think more than the first time. In the little
touches of that brusqueness which the well-bred world affects, Oliphant
is admirable, and so removed from that low-world dialogue that vulgar
novelists imagine people in Society converse in. I am, however, not
surprised at the strange step he has taken in life; such extreme
fastidiousness could find no rest anywhere but in savagery, just as
we see incredulity take refuge in the Church of Rome: _les extrêmes se
touchent_ oftener in life than we suspect.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _April_ 5, 1870.
“I send you an ‘O’Dowd’ I hope will please you. I think it has more
‘fun’ in it than all my late ones,--though, God knows, I never myself
felt less disposed to drollery, for I am literally worn out with
watching beside my poor sick wife. I cannot bear to read, and it is a
blessing to me to run to the pen for distraction.
“The O’D. on Canning has been going the round of the Italian papers, and
I see one, the ‘Eco de l’Arno,’ has given a sort of series of extracts
from the O’Ds. called Leverania.
“I see Whiteside is in London. How I wish I could go over! I’d like to
have a dinner with you both. You’d be greatly pleased with him.
“I am told that the deadlock about the Education Bill is caused by the
opposition of the Irish Catholic bishops, who insist on denominational
schools--that is, having the whole grant for themselves. No bad idea
after all. I wish every consul, with a bald back to his head, should
have double salary.
“My best regards to Mrs Blackwood. Tell her she’ll have her meals in
peace this time in London, but it isn’t my fault after all.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _April_ 12, 1870.
“You gratify me much by what you say of these O’Ds. Failing health,
broken spirits, a very sad home, and many uncertainties are hard to
bear, but I believe I could face them all better than the thought of
‘Brain bankruptcy.’ To draw on my intellect and get for answer ‘no
assets’ would, I feel, overwhelm me utterly. Your hearty words have,
therefore, done me good service, and in my extra glass of claret--and I
will take one to-day--I’ll drink your health.
“I am distressed at not getting the _April No. of ‘Maga’_ yet; by some
accident it has been forgotten or miscarried, and it is a great comfort
to me to ‘cuddle over.’
“My poor wife is still suffering intensely, and too weak to undergo the
operation, which is eminently necessary. She has at last, too, lost all
courage, and, I might almost say, wish to live. Much of this depression
is from actual pain, and all our efforts are now directed to allay that.
I never leave the house, or, if I do, go beyond the garden. Of course, I
admit no visitors, and scarcely remember the days of the week.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _April_ 15,1870.
“I think the title had better be ‘Personal and Peculiar.’ I have added
and changed the conclusion, whether for the better or not you shall
decide. There was some danger in saying more, and I might have found, if
I went on, that, as Curran says, I had argued myself _out_ of my brief.
“I have a half suspicion the Bill may break down after all,--not that it
signifies much, since the Tories could not take office with any chance
of holding it, but the mere failure would offend Gladstone, and even
that would be a comfort.
“I have no better news to send for this, and am low, low!
“Don’t forget to send me ‘Maga’ for this month--April.
“Have you read Dickens’ new serial, and what do you say to it? I am
curious to hear.
“We have a report here from Greece that the English Sec. of Legation and
a whole picnic party have been captured by the brigands, and an immense
ransom demanded.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _April_ 23, 1870.
“The blow has fallen at last, and I am desolate. My poor darling was
taken from me at two this morning, without suffering. It seems to me as
if years had gone over since she smiled her last good-bye to me. All the
happiness of my life has gone, and all the support. God’s greatest mercy
would be to take me from a life of daily looking back, which is all that
remains to me now.
“You are, I feel, a true friend who will feel for my great sorrow, and I
write this as to one who will pity me.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _May_ 28, 1870.
“Though I cannot read your note by any other light than an affectionate
desire to be of service to _me_, veiled under the notion that I could
be of any use to _you_; and though I say I see all this, and see besides
how little capable I now am of even a weak effort, I accept your offer
and write at once for leave of absence, which, between ourselves, I
do not think would be accorded me if it was guessed that I intended
to visit Greece. Indeed I _know_ that Mr Gladstone’s Hellenism is
calculated on at Athens to sustain the Greek government through anything
that the public opinion of Europe would be likely to submit to.*
* Mr Blackwood proposed that Lever should pay a visit to
Greece, for the purpose of making investigations about an
act of brigandage which had shocked the civilised world. A
party of English tourists, which included Lord and Lady
Muncaster, had been seized by brigands at Oropos, near
Marathon. During the course of the negotiations for the
ransom of the tourists, some members of the British Legation
at Athens had been murdered. Many influential Greeks were
conniving at the act of brigandage, and matters were at this
time in a very disturbed condition in high quarters.--E. D.
“Erskine is an old friend of mine, but he is a very self-contained and
reserved fellow, who will reveal nothing, and I would be glad of some
Greek introductions to any persons not officially bound to sustain the
Queen’s Cabinet. My wish would be to take the Constantinople boat
that leaves on Saturday next, the 4th, and reaches Athens on Thursday
following, 9th; but if my leave is not accorded me by telegraph I cannot
do this, and there is only _one_ boat in the week. I have to-day seen
a private telegram from M. W------, the Greek Minister to the Austrian
government here, saying that he is on the track of this most infamous
outrage, and that if his suspicion prove true, some men of political
eminence will have to fly from Greece for ever.
“I cannot thank you enough for your kind and affectionate remembrance of
me: it is very dear to me such friendship in this dark hour of my life.
There is something gone wrong with the action of my heart, and I have
short moments when it seems disposed to give in,--and indeed I don’t
wonder at it.
“As there would be no time to send me letters here in reply to this,
write to me addressed British Legation, Athens--that is, taking for
granted that I shall start on Saturday next.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _June_ 4, 1870.
“I have looked out anxiously for a note from you these last couple
of days. I hope you got my telegram safely. Yesterday I received a
telegraphic despatch from F. O. saying my ‘leave was granted,’ and I
sail now in two hours. If I find that my heart disturbance--which has
been very severe the last couple of days--increases on me, I shall stop
at Corfu and get back again at my leisure. I do not know if there is
much to be learned at Athens that Erskine has not either gleaned or
_muddled_, but I will try and ascertain where the infamy began.
“I used once to think that the most sorrowful part of leaving home was
the sad heart I left behind me. I know now that there is something worse
than that--it is to carry away the sadness of a desolate heart with me.
“I believe the post leaves Athens for the Continent on Saturdays: if so,
and that I arrive safely on Thursday 9th, I shall write to you by that
mail.
“My affectionate remembrances to Mrs Blackwood.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Athens, Hôtel d’Angleterre, _June_ 9,1870.
“Here I am, in poor Vyner’s quarters: but short as the time is since my
arrival, it has taught me that there is nothing, or next to nothing, to
be learned. The amount of lying here beats Banagher--indeed all Ireland.
However, I will try and make a _résumé_ of the question that will be
readable and, if I can, interesting.
“I am a good deal fagged, but not worse for my journey, and, on the
whole, stronger than when I started.
“I thought I should have had some letter from you here, but possibly
there has not been time.
“If Lord Carnarvon knew of my direct source of information it would be
of great use; for the Legation and Finlay, whom I have seen, are simply
men defending a thesis, and so far not to be relied on.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Athens, June 17,1870.
“I send you a hurried line to catch F. O. messenger, who is just
leaving. I want merely to say that I have got together a considerable
number of facts about brigandage altogether, and the late misfortune in
particular, and only wait till I get back to put them into shape. Keep
me a corner, then, not for next No. but August, and I hope I shall send
something readable.
“I have met much courtesy and civility here, but I am dying to get
home. My palpitations still trouble me, and if I don’t actually faint, I
suppose it is that I don’t know how.
“I have been anxiously looking out for letters from you, and now I am
off to Corinth, and shall work my way back through the islands.
“Do you know that if any of the blunders had failed, these poor fellows
would now have been alive! and even with the concurring mistakes of [?
], Erskine, and [? ], they would not have succeeded if the rains had not
swollen the streams and made them unfordable. It is the saddest story of
cross-purposes and stupidities I ever listened to in my life.”
_To Mr William Blackwood._
“Trieste, _June_ 30,1870.
“I have just reached home, and send you at once what I have done, and
what may still require a page or two to complete. Not knowing where your
uncle is, and not liking to incur the delay of sending on a wrong errand
if he should have left London, I hope he may like what I have written,
which, whether good or bad, I can honestly declare has occupied all my
sleeping and waking thoughts these last four weeks, insomuch that I have
never looked at the [? proofs] of a story* that must begin next August
_à contrat_, and for which I can feel neither interest nor anxiety.
Indeed, I am in every way ‘at the end of my tether,’ my journey, and
certainly my heart symptoms are greatly diminished, and the sooner I
shut up altogether the better will it be for that very little scrap of
reputation which I once acquired.
* ‘Lord Kilgobbin.’
“I am very ‘shaky’ in health, but very happy to be again at home with my
dear girls, who never weary of kindnesses to me, and who would give me
comfort if I could be comforted.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _July_ 1,1870.
“Your letter just reached me by a late post as I was sending off this
packet. I write a line to thank you, and say how happy it made me to see
your handwriting again.
“My daughters find me looking much better for
“It is quite true ‘this Greek story is a very strange one’; whether
we ever shall get to the bottom of it is very doubtful. I believe the
present Cabinet in Greece are dealing fairly with Erskine now,--partly
from a hope that it is the best policy--partly from believing that
England will resent heavily any attempt at evasion. Of Noel I have
great distrust; he has been brought up amongst Greeks--and even Greek
brigands--of whom he speaks in terms of eulogy and warmth that are (with
our late experiences) positively revolting.
“I hope you will like what I have written. I have given it my whole
thought and attention, and for the last four weeks neither talked,
reflected, or speculated on anything but the Marathon disaster. I saw
Finlay, who is very old and feeble, and I thought mentally so too.
“I wonder will the new Secretary at F. O. act energetically about
Greece? I have grave doubts that Gladstone will make conciliation the
condition of his appointment. We are in a position to do whatever
we like: the difficulty is to know what that should be. To cause the
misfortune [? ], the blunders of [? ] & Co. would not have succeeded
without the heavy rain that made the rivers impassable and retarded the
movements. In fact, such a combination of evil accidents never was heard
of, and had anybody failed in anything they did, the poor fellows would
now be living.
“I am glad to think Oliphant will come back to the world again,--these
genial fellows are getting too rare to spare one of the best of them to
barbarism. I should like to meet him again.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _July_ 9, 1870.
“I have just received your cordial note, and write at once to say how
sorry I am not to be able to do a sketch of Lord C[larendon]. First of
all, I have not anything that could serve to remind me of his career.
I know he was a Commissioner of Customs in Ireland, an Ambassador in
Spain, and a Viceroy in Dublin, but there ends my public knowledge of
him. Personally I only remember him as a very high-bred and courteous
gentleman, who made a most finished manner do service for wit (which
he had not), and a keen insight into life, especially foreign life, of
which he really only knew the conventional part. If I had the materials
for his biography I would not hesitate about the sketch, but it is as
well (for _you_) that I have not, for I should not do it well, and we
should both of us be sorry at the failure.
“I’ll tell you, however, who could and would do it well, Rob. Lytton,
who married his niece, and is now at Knebworth. _He_ knew Lord C.
intimately, and had exactly that sort of appreciation of him that the
public would like and be pleased to see in print.
“I don’t think Dickens’ memory is at all served by this ill-judged
adulation. He was a man of genius and a loyal, warm-hearted, good
fellow; but he was not Shakespeare, nor was Sam Weller Falstaff.
“I hope you will like my Greek paper. I cannot turn my mind to anything
else, and must add some pages when I see the proof. I hear there will
be no Greek debate, as all parties are agreed not to discuss Lord C.’s
absurd concession about the ship of war to take off the brigands,--a
course which would have given Russia such a handle for future meddling,
and left us totally unable to question it.
“My journey has certainly done me good. My flurried action of the heart
has greatly left me, and except a sense of deep dreariness and dislike
to do anything--even speak--I am as I used to be.
“I’d say time would do the rest if I did not hope for something more
merciful than time and that shall anticipate time: I mean rest--long
rest.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“_Aug_. 4, 1870.
“I was conning over the enclosed O’D. when your letter came this
morning,--and of late the post misses three days in five,--and I believe
I should have detained my MS. for further revision, but I cannot delay
my deepest thanks for your munificent remittance. I have not now to be
told so to feel how much more you were thinking of me than of Greece
when you advised this journey. Be assured that in the interest you felt
for me in my great sorrow I grew to have a care for life and a desire
to taste its friendships that I didn’t think my heart was capable of. I
know well, too well, that I could not have written anything that could
justify such a mission--least of all with a breaking heart and an aching
head,--but I was sure that in showing you how willing I was to accept
a benefit at your hands I should best prove what a value I attached to
your friendship, and how ready I was to owe you what brought me round
to life and labour again. I do fervently hope the Greek article may be
a success; but nothing that it could do, nor anything that I might yet
write, could in any way repay what I am well content should be my great
debt to your sterling affection for me,--never to be acquitted--never
forgotten.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Aug_. 7, 1870.
“I am full sure that nothing but war will now be talked, and so I send
another bellicose ‘O’Dowd’ to make up the paper. I hope there may be
time for a proof; but if not, my hand is so well known to you now, and
you are so well aware of what I intended where I blotch or break down,
it is of less consequence.
“This Wissembourg battle was really a great success; and I don’t care a
rush that the Prussians were in overwhelming numbers. May they always be
so, and may those rascally French get so palpably, unmistakably licked
that all their lying press will be unable to gloss over the disgrace.
“If L. Nap. gets _one_ victory he’ll go in for peace and he’ll have
England to back him; and I pray, therefore, that Prussia may have the
first innings, and I think _Paris_ will do the rest by sending the
Bonapartes to the devil.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Aug_. 14.
“An idea has just occurred to me, and on telling it to my daughters
they wish me to consult with you on it. It is of a series of papers, the
_rationale_ of which is this:--
“All newspaper correspondence from the war being interdicted, or so
much restricted as to be of little value, I have thought that a mock
narrative following events closely, but with all the licence that
an unblushing liar might give himself, either as to the facts or the
persons with whom he is affecting intimacy, and this being done by Major
M’Caskey, would be rather good fun. I would set out by explaining how
he is at present at large and unemployed, making the whole as a personal
narrative, and showing that in the dearth of real news he offers himself
as a military correspondent, whose qualifications include not only
special knowledge of war, but a universal acquaintance with all modern
languages, and the personal intimacy of every one from the King of
Prussia to Mr Cook the excursionist. This is enough for a mere glimpse
of the intention, which, possibly, is worth consideration. Turn it over
in your mind and say has it enough in it to recommend it? I know all
will depend on how it is done, and I have no sanguine trust in myself
now, either for nerve or ‘go,’ and still less for rattling adventures,
but yet the actual events would be a great stimulant, and perhaps they
might supply some of the missing spirit I am deploring.
“I don’t know that I should have written about this _now_, but the girls
have given me no peace since I first talked of it, and are eternally
asking have I begun Major M’Caskey’s adventures. Your opinion shall
decide if it be worth trial.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“_Aug._ 29,1870.
“A post that takes seven days (and travels, I believe, over Berlin and
part of Pomerania) before it reaches Vienna, warns me to be early, and
so I despatch these two O’Ds. to see if you like them as part of next
month’s envoy.
“Of course, people will admit of no other topic than the war or the
causes of it. As the month goes on new interests may arise, and we shall
be on the watch for them.
“Be assured ‘The Standard’ is making a grave blunder by its
anti-Germanism, and English opinion has _just now_ a value in Germany
which, if the nation be once disgusted with us, will be lost for ever.
“Even Mr Whitehurst of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ gives the Emperor up, and
how he defers his abdication after such a withdrawal of confidence is
not easy to say.
“I don’t suspect that the supremacy of Prussia will be unmitigated gain
to us--far from it; but we shall not be immediate sufferers, and we
shall at least have the classic comfort of being the ‘last devoured.’
“I hope you gave Lord Lytton and myself the credit (that is due to us)
of prophesying this war.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“_Sept_. 1, 1870.
“I have so full a conviction of _your_ judgment and such a thorough
distrust of my own, that I send you a brief bit of M’Caskey _for your
opinion_. If you like it, if you think it is what it ought to be and
the sort of thing to take, just send me one line by telegraph to say ‘Go
on.’ I shall continue the narrative in time to reach you by the 18th
at farthest, and enough for a paper. Remember this--the _real war
narrative_ is already given and will continue to be given by the
newspapers, and it is only by a _mock_ personal narrative, with the
pretentious opinions of this impudent blackguard upon all he sees,
hears, or meets with, that I could hope for any originality.
“My eldest daughter is very eager that I should take your opinion at
once, and I am sure you will not think anything of the trouble I am
giving you for both our sakes.”
_To Mr William Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sep_. 2, 1870.
“What a kind thought it was to send me the slip with Corkhardt’s paper!
It is excellent fun, and I send it to-day to the Levant to a poor
banished friend on a Greek island.
“I regard the nation that thrashes France with the same sort of
gratitude I feel for the man who shoots a jaguar. It is so much done in
the interests of all humanity, even though it be only a blackguard or a
Bismarck who does it.
“I send you an O’D. to make enough for a short paper with the other sent
on Monday last.
“I sent your uncle a specimen page of M’Caskey, but by bad luck I
despatched it on my birthday, the 31st August,* and, of course, it will
come to no good. It was Dean Swift’s custom to read a certain chapter
of Job on his birthday, wherein the day is cursed that a man-child was
born. I don’t go that far, but I have a very clear memory of a number
of mishaps (to give them a mild name) which have taken this occasion to
date from. It would be very grateful news to me to learn I was not to
see ‘another return of the happy event,’ but impatience will serve me
little, and I must wait till I’m asked for.”
* The statement here as to his birthday is sufficiently
explicit See vol. i p. 2.--E. D. the credit of reviewing
‘Lothair,’ I am determined to say that these papers were
written by Colonel Humbug!
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_ 11,1870.
“Since I got your ‘go on’ I have never ceased writing about M’Caskey.
Upon you I throw all the responsibility, the more as it has very nearly
turned my _own_ brain with its intrinsic insanity.
“I suppose I have sent you folly enough for the present month; and if
you will write me one line to say you wish it, I will set to work at
once at the next part and to the extent you dictate.
“Pray look fully to the corrections, and believe me [to be] not very
sane or collected.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_. 13, 1870.
“The post, which failed completely yesterday, brought me your three
proofs to-day. I now send a short, but not sweet, O’Dowd on ‘Irish
Sympathy’ (whose correction you must look to for me), but which is
certainly the best of the batch.
“I had hoped to have heard you mention the receipt of M’Caskey, whose
revelations on the war will only be of value if given at once. I also
sent off some additional matter for M’C. on Sunday last, and hope they
have arrived safely.
“I wish you would send me ‘John’ as a whole. If you should do so, send
it to F. O., to the care of F. Alston, Esq., to be forwarded to me. I do
not know of any novel-writer I like so well as Mrs. O., and if I could
get her to write her name in any of her books for me I’d treasure it
highly. She is the most womanly writer of the age, and has all the
delicacy and decency one desires in a woman.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_. 14, 1870.
“My sincere thanks for your note and its enclosure. It seems to me that
I do nothing but get money from you. I suspect, however, that you will
soon be freed from your pensioner. I am breaking fast, and as really the
wish to live on has left me, my friends will not grudge me going to my
rest.
“I am indeed glad that you like the O’Ds. I tear at least three for one
I send you, being more than ever fearful of that ‘brain-breakdown’ than
I am of a gorged lung or a dropsical heart.
“From your telegram about M’Caskey, I was disposed to think you wished
_the contribution for the October No._, and set to work at once to send
another batch. I do not now understand whether this is your intention.
Of course (if possible) it were all the better it were begun
immediately, because in the next part I could bring him up to recent
events, and make his impatient comments on actual occurrences more
outrageously pretentious and extravagant. You will tell me what you
intend when you write.
“Some Hungarians--great swells in their own land--have been here, and
are pressing the girls and myself to go to them a bit. It would be a
great boon to my poor daughters, and for them I would try it if I could,
but I have no heart for it. There was a time a month on the Danube would
have been a great temptation to me.
“I will tell Syd to write to you, and you’re lucky if she does not do so
with an MS.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_. 16,1870.
“The war interruption delayed your proof, which only reached me this
morning, and as the second part must be in your hands before this, I am
hopeful that it will all appear in October No., so that by the No. in
November I may bring things down to the actual date of passing events.
I wish this because I know that the _apropos_ will be the chief merit of
the whole.
“When I can get him into diplomatic correspondence about the Peace, &c,
I think there should be some good fun; but I shall not go on till I hear
from you or see that this is out, as I always do best on the spur of
publication.
“This dictating to the King of Prussia how he ought to make peace, when
none of us saw or presumed to say how he should have made war, is to me
insufferable; and the simple question, ‘How much moderation would
France have had had she reached Berlin?’ settles the whole dispute. The
insolent defiance of the Parisians within about a week of eating each
other is a proof that these people may be thrashed and scourged, but the
outrageous self-sufficiency cannot be squeezed out of them. I have not
a shadow of pity for them, and it is without any remorse that I see them
going headlong to--Bismarck!
“Victor Hugo’s address to the Germans beats not only Banagher, but beats
Garibaldi in high-flown absurdity. Dear me! to think what old age can
do for a man! What a warning to us small folk when we see a really great
head come to such Martin Tupperism as this. Perhaps, however, it is a
law of nature, and that poets, like plums, should be taken before they
drop.
“Let me have even one line from you if I’m to go on with M’C.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_. 21,1870.
“In the hope that M’Caskey has reached in time and makes his bow next
month, and seeing that as events go fast he must stir himself to keep up
with them, I have never quitted him since I wrote. I therefore send off
two chapters, whose headings I defer till I see the print, and will, if
you approve, bring him up to Sedan in the ensuing parts for the November
No.
“The absurd idea has got such hold of me that I cannot free myself of
it even for a moment, and if the reader only catches my _intention_ the
thing will have a chance of success. In fact, I want to try a mild
and not _offensive_ quiz on all ‘sensational’ reporting. M’Caskey,
fortunately, is a fine lay figure for such humbug, and being already in
part known through ‘Tony Butler,’ needs no introduction.
“I do not, honestly speaking, know whether the notion is a good one, or
whether I am doing the thing well or ill; my only guide (and it once was
a safe one) is the pleasure I feel in the writing, and this though I
am in no small bodily pain, and cannot get one night’s rest in four--a
great drawback to a poor devil whose stronghold was sleep through
everything!
“Do write to me. I cannot tell you the amount of direction and comfort
your letters give me.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Sept_. 30, 1870.
“I am disappointed on hearing that M’Caskey does not appear this
month, and perhaps more so because I concur in the reasons for the
postponement. I suppose, however, that once the great tension we now
feel about these events is relieved, even by a short interval, we shall
not be reprehended for the small levities which we extend to certain
people and situations, by no means among the most serious interests of
the hour.
“Of course I am sorry not to be in England at this time. There is
scarcely a telegram of the day without its suggestion; but I have less
regrets as I think how feeble and broken I am, and how low and depressed
I feel, even at the tidings that might rally and cheer me.
“I am greatly gratified by your message from Mrs Oliphant, and I shall
treasure a book from her hand as a very precious possession. She is a
charming writer, and carries me along with her in all her sympathies;
and I shall never forget the pleasure her books gave to the sick-bed
wherein all my hopes rested.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Oct_. 22, 1870.
“As I am fairly knocked up at last--my malady making fierce way with me
within the last week or so--I send you what I have done of M’Caskey. You
will see that I have adhered to the _actual_ incidents of the campaign,
though I fear I have not been remarkable for a truthful construction of
them. When I see this in print, and hear what you say of it, I shall be
better able, and perhaps stronger, to deal with it.
“From four o’clock I cannot sleep with pain, and to a sea-calf like
myself, who requires about a double measure of sleep, you may imagine
the injury.
“The ladies’ wardrobe seized at Worth is a pure fact, and mentioned by
‘The Times,’ &c.
“If I could have counted on a little health and strength, I’d have asked
you to let me translate the plays of Terence for your Ancient Classics.
I have some trick of dialogue, and used to enjoy the ‘Adrian’ as much as
one of Molière’s. I cannot now dream of this: my own comedy has come to
the fifth act, and I actually am impatient for the fall of the curtain.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Nov._ 8,1870.
“From a line in a newspaper I learned the great disaster that had
befallen you, and felt for you with all my heart. It is a true
consolation, the thought that those we love are in every way more
mercifully dealt with by removal, and I have that feeling as the
stronghold of my own poor support--after years of struggle with what
could not be cured; but still the grief is _there_, and only time makes
us able to reason with it. I am shamed when I read your letters to
perceive how much I must have talked of my own health. I try at home to
skulk the subject, but I see I am not so successful when I sit down
to my desk. I am failing very fast, strength and spirits are going
together, and I really see no reason to wish it otherwise. I only pray
that with such faculties as I have I may live on to the end, and that
the end may not be far off. My dear girls are doing all that they can
think of to make my life easy and comfortable, and when I am free from
pain I try to occupy myself and take interest in what I am doing.
“I had intended to wait your proof before sending a short additional
part of M’Caskey, but if I have it ready, I believe I shall send it at
once. Of course the proof will depend on you. I strongly suspect that
Bismarck was endeavouring to get up a _querelle d’Allemand_ with us
about neutrality, which certainly carried the nation with him, and might
be found useful when, at the close of the war, he either determined to
take Luxembourg or assume towards England a defiance--which, without
some pretext, would have been impolitic, if not impossible. He has
certainly so far worked on the German mind as to make them regard the
splendid munificence of England with distrust and almost dislike. With
all this, it was a gross stupidity of the Tories to be French in their
sympathies, but certainly the readiness with which they made a wrong
choice where there is an alternative looks like something more than
German.
“It does seem scant justice to make a whole people responsible for the
inflated rubbish of Victor Hugo, but still, any one that knows France,
knows that this senseless bravado is exactly what supplies the peculiar
spirit of the nation, and that nearly all that dash and _élan_ which is
accepted as irresistible was only unconquerable by our own consent, and
by a sort of conventional agreement.
“I think I remember Mr Wynne, a nice fellow, but an atrocious whist
player. I have some dim recollection of having abused his play, and
I hope he has lived to forgive me and can bear to think of me without
malice.
“I wish I had had his campaigning opportunities,--not that I have the
most fragmentary faculty of observation, but there is a colour and a
keeping over all that one calls up in memory, which nothing replaces,
and certainly Major M’Caskey would have been not only ‘circumstantial’
but occasionally ‘correct’ if he had known how. I thought I was
imagining a very boastful and pretentious rascal, who had few scruples
in assuring himself to be a man of genius and a hero, but I have just
read the new preface to ‘Lothair,’ and I actually feel Major M’Caskey to
be a diffident and retiring character, very slow to put forward a claim
to any superiority, and on the whole reluctant to take any credit for
his own abilities.”
_To Mr John Blackwood_.
“Trieste, Nov. 11, 1870.
“While waiting for the proof of M’C. I finish the part for December. I
now suspect that the war will go on to an attack on Paris, and mean to
bring the next No. up to the _actual_ events of the day. It is only
by exhibiting him as an audacious liar that his impertinences on the
correspondent class could be tolerated, but they will surely not be
touchy at being called to account by such a critic.
“The Imperial correspondence now published shows it is scarcely possible
to invent anything too bold or too outrageous for belief, and the
absolute vulgarity of the State contrivances and expedients is not the
least remarkable part of the whole. If I ever get to the diplomacies of
the war I shall have some fun.
“Of course the present part must look to yourself for correction.
“‘The Observer’ has a short notice of M’C. this week, and ‘The Sun’
another and more civil.
“Have you seen that the Emperor in his pamphlet endorses the very
strategy recommended by M’Caskey--the attack on Central Germany?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Nov_. 14.
“It is not fair to pelt you with my ‘letters’ as well as my
‘literature,’ and you may reasonably claim some immunity on the former
score.
“I remember a very important Englishwoman--she wrote a book called ‘The
Unprotected Female in Norway’--once stopping me in the street on the
ground that ‘no introduction was necessary, as I was _a public man_.’
“I send you back M’C, which reads in places so like reality; but on the
whole I think it will do, and hope you think so too.
“Sir H. Seymour writes me word that he believes he is going to succeed
to Lord Hertford’s Irish estates, a bagatelle of £70,000 per an.! I know
of none more deserving of good fortune.
“‘John’ reached me after my note was closed, with a charming note from
Mrs O.
“Have you heard--that is, have I told you--that the ‘Neue Presse of
Vienna’ quotes M’Caskey as a veritable correspondent? But the General
Brialmont did more. In his ‘Life of Napoleon’ he states, ‘Mon. Charles
O’Malley raconte que,’ &c, &c.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Nov_. 20, 1870.
“There is a new complication, and for _us_ I suspect a worse one than
all--a Russian war! I believe that every one abroad knew that if even
France had not the worst of it, the mere fact of her having gone through
a stiff campaign, and been crippled of men and money by the effort,
would have suggested to the Russians that _now_ was the time to deal
with ‘the sick man.’ The inducement on seeing France totally disabled
was too tempting, and they have denounced the treaty which they had
determined not to assail before next spring.
“You know better than I do what people at home are disposed to do, and
what’s more, what they _can_ do. By the newspapers I gather that at last
the English people are aware that they have no army; and as a fleet,
even if it floats, cannot fight on dry land, we are comparatively
powerless in ourselves. Of course we could subsidise, but whom? Not the
Austrians, though I see all the correspondents say so, and even tell the
number they could bring into the field and the places they would occupy,
&c.: and our Ambassador at Vienna, I hear, writes home most cheery
accounts of the Austrian resources. Now I _know_ that if Austria were to
move to-morrow, her Slavic population, quite entirely in the hands and
some in the pay of Russia, would rise and dismember the empire. Imagine
Fenianism not only in Meath and Kerry but in Norfolk, Yorkshire, and
Kent, and then you can have some idea of the danger of provoking such a
rebellious element as the Austrian Greek.
“A friend just arrived from Florence tells me that the King made an
ostentatious display of his cordiality to the Turkish Minister a few
nights ago, and that we can have 150,000 Italians to come down to such
assistance. Perhaps to accept the help might be regarded as a compromise
by the Peace party in England. It is like the very small child of the
unchaste young lady.
“A Cabinet courier went through here to-day for Constantinople, _the
Danube route being judged no longer safe_, which is very significant:
but what are we to do?
“Have you reviewed Henry Bulwer’s ‘Life of Palmerston’? I hear it very
well spoken of. Bulwer has all the astuteness to relish the _raserie_
of Pam, and I understand what the world at last sees was his mock
geniality. But what would we not give to have Lord Palmerston back
again, and some small respect felt abroad for the sentiment and wishes
of England!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Dec_. 4,1870.
“I am so convinced of your better judgment, that when I differ from you
I am ready to withdraw a favour and take your verdict. In the present
case you will, however, see that ‘Pall Mall’ of the 29th has ventured on
‘quizzing’ war incidents and correspondents as freely, and I don’t think
more successfully, than myself.
“At all events, you are the only competent judge of the matter, and I
can’t move pleas in demurrer, and if it be not safe, don’t print him or
use him.
“I only write a very hurried line to say so much, and now go back to a
sofa again, for I am crippled with gout and worse--if there be a worse.
“I am not up to writing: the last thing I had done was an ‘interview’
of M’C. with the Emperor at Metz, and it is dangerously near the
waste-paper basket at this writing.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Dec_. 22, 1870.
“I am so low and _découragé_ that I have little heart to send you the
two O’Ds. that go with this.
“The Gortschakoff one is, I think, smart; the other is only original. If
the world should offer, meanwhile, matter for a third, I’ll try and take
it _toute fois_ if it be that you like and approve of these.
“I am going more rapidly downward than before. I suppose I shall run
on to spring, or near it. Though, like Thompson’s argument for lying in
bed, ‘I see no motive for rising,’ I am quite satisfied to travel in the
other direction.
“I don’t wonder that the British world is growing French in sympathy.
The Prussians are doing their very utmost to disgust Europe, and with a
success that cannot be disputed.
“I hope, if you in England mean war with Russia, that you do not count
on Austria. She will not, because she cannot, help you; and a Russian
war would mean here dismemberment of the empire and utter ruin. If
Austria were beaten, the German provinces would become Prussian; if she
were victorious, Hungary would dominate over the empire and take the
supremacy at once. Which would be worse? I really cannot say.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Trieste, _Dec_ 29,1870.
“I give you all my thanks for your kind letter, which, owing to the deep
snow in Styria, only reached me to-day. I am, of course, sorry the world
will not see the fun of M’Caskey as do the Levers, but it is no small
consideration to me to be represented in that minority so favourably.
“Poor Anster used to tell of an Irish fortune so ‘tied up’ by law that
it could not be untied, and left the heirs to die in the poorhouse.
Perhaps my drollery in the M’Caskey legend is just as ingeniously
wrapped up, and that nothing can find it. At all events, I have no
courage to send you any more of him.
“I am told (authoritatively) that Paris will give in on the 15th
January, but I scarcely believe it. The Germans have perfectly succeeded
in making themselves thoroughly unpopular through Europe, and this mock
anger with England is simply contemptible. If this insolence compels us
to have a fleet and an army, we shall have more reason to be grateful to
than angry with them; but how hard either with Childers or Cardwell? and
how to get rid of the Whigs?
“Gladstone’s letter to the Pope would be a good subject to ‘O’Dowd,’
but I cannot yet hit on the way. It is, however, a little absurd for a
Minister to be so free of his outlying sympathies when he is bullied by
America, bearded by Russia, and Bismarcked to all eternity.
“I am glad to hear of Oliphant. It gives great interest to the
correspondence to remember a friend’s hand in it.
“I have been always forgetting to ask you about Kinglake. A bishop who
came through here said he had died last autumn. Surely this is not true.
I hope not most sincerely.”